Women's World Chess Championship 2006

2/8/2006 – FIDE has announced the list of players who will take part in the World Women's Championship, to be held from 10-27 March 2006, in Ekaterinburg, Russia. The reigning world champion is Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria, who won the title in 2004. We bring you complete lists and lots of pictures.

The
Women's World Championship was established by FIDE in 1927. It was a tournament
that was held alongside the Chess Olympiad. It was won by the legendary Vera
Menchik (picture right), who went on to win every challenge and indeed ever
championship she ever played in during her lifetime. Menchik died, undefeated,
during the Second World War, and was succeeded by Ludmilla Rudenko, who won
a round robin in 1949-50 to receive the title.

After this the system was changed to mirror the men's championship, i.e. a
cycle of Candidates tournaments and Interzonals was held to to pick a challenger.
The first was Elizaveta Bikova in 1952, who won the title in 1953, lost it
in 1956 and regained it in 1958. Then came the "Georgian era", which
lasted from 1962 to 1991 and saw Nona Gaprindashvili and Maya Chiburdaidze
dominating women's chess.

In 1991 the Chinese player Xie Jun defeated Chiburdanidze to take the title.
She was defeated in 1996 by the oldest Polgar sister, Susan, who kept the title
until she lost it in 1999 by default to Xie Jun due to the birth of her first
child. After this FIDE installed the knockout system for the Women's World
Championship, and this was won in 2001 by the Chinese player Zhu Chen. The
last championship in 2004 saw Bulgarian GM Antoaneta Stefanova win the title.

See also

9/26/2017 – The final classical game. The finals has been relatively sedate with three draws until now. But it could all end today with one decisive game. Ding Liren has the black pieces today. It's going to be an exciting game. Games kick off at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EST) with live commentary from Tbilisi by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and live updates by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

See also

7/5/2017 – This is neither prank nor clever wording: Garry Kasparov will be playing in the official St. Louis leg of the Grand Chess Tour from August 14-19, 2017. Please note that this is the Rapid and Blitz competition, just as the ones held in Paris and Levuen these last weeks, and not the classical events. However, this is not an exhibition event, and will determine the official Grand Chess Tour rankings as well as FIDE ratings of the players. Here is the press release.

Video

Tired of spending hours and hours on the boring theory of your favourite opening? Then here is your solution, play an Anti-Sicilian with 3.Bb5 against 2...d6 or 2...Nc6, and 3.d3 against 2...e6. In 60 minutes you will get a crash course in how to avoid mainstream theory and in understanding the ideas of this Anti-Sicilian setup. After these 60 minutes you should be able to survive the Sicilian for a long time, without being bothered by new developments found by engine x supported by an x-core machine. Now that it finally comes down to understanding, let's play chess!